The incomparableness of God illustrated in his forgiveness of sin: 1. The nature of his forgiveness.
"Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?" The prophet here—anticipating the full deliverance, not only of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, but probably of humanity itself from the curse of sin through Jesus Christ—breaks forth in a sublime strain of praise and admiration in relation to the incomparable character of God. "Who is a God like unto thee?" The subject of the two verses (18, 19) is Divine forgiveness, its nature, its source, and its completeness. We shall confine ourselves now to the nature of Divine forgiveness. God's forgiveness here is represented in the words, he "passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage." This does not mean that God is unobservant of sin, for all things are naked and open unto him; nor that it is not an offence to him, for it is "an abomination in his sight" but that he regards it in no fault-finding spirit, but with a noble generosity. As loving parents are disposed to overlook much in their children of which they cannot approve, the great Father is disposed to overlook much. "He is not strict to mark iniquity." He passes it by, pursues his benevolent march as if it did not exist. Theology, which has thrown a haze over many of the bright things of revelation, has clouded this, one of its most glorious orbs. Forgetting that the Bible is a popular book, using language in accommodation to our habits of thought and expression, it has constructed its theories upon the etymology of words. The truth and pertinence of this remark will be seen if, at the outset, we consider the very diversified forms in which the Bible represents to us the doctrine of Divine forgiveness. Generally, indeed, I find it set forth under figures corresponding to the aspects in which sin stands before the mind of the writer at the time. For example—
I. WHEN SIN APPEARS AS A DEBT, AN UNFULFILLED OBLIGATION, THEN PARDON IS SPOKEN OF AS A CANCELING. Thus in the forty-third chapter of Isaiah Jehovah is represented as saying, "I, even I, am he who blotteth out thy transgressions;" and Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, exhorts his vast auditory to "repent, that their sins may be blotted out" When a man has paid his debts, or when some one else has discharged them, the creditor takes his pen in hand and strikes from the ledger both the name of the debtor and the amount. But sin is a debt in a very figurative sense, and therefore such representations of pardon must not be taken in a literal meaning.
II. WHEN SIN APPEARS AS AN ESTRANGEMENT FROM GOD, THEN FORGIVENESS IS REPRESENTED AS RECONCILIATION. But as the estrangement is not mutual, it being exclusively on man's part; in the reconciliation there is no mutual change of mind. God cannot change, and need not change, to be reconciled to the sinner.
III. WHEN SIN APPEARS AS AN INDICTMENT, FORGIVENESS IS SPOKEN OF AS A JUSTIFICATION. But justification can in the nature of the case have but a very remote resemblance to the forensic term as used by men. In civil justification, for instance, the charge has been found false, the accused demands justification as a right, and retires from the court with a high sense of insulted innocence.
IV. WHEN SIN APPEARS AS A POLLUTION, FORGIVENESS IS REPRESENTED AS A CLEANSING. Hence we read of Christ's blood cleansing from all sin. But it is only in a very figurative sense that you can employ the word "washing" to the mind, which is an invisible and impalpable power.
V. WHEN SIN APPEARS AS A DISEASE, FORGIVENESS IS REPRESENTED AS A HEALING. "I will heal your backsliding;" "I am come to bind up the broken hearted."
VI. WHEN KIN APPEARS AS AN OBSTRUCTION BETWEEN THE SOUL AND GOD, FORGIVENESS IS REPRESENTED AS A CLEARING. The mountains are levelled, the clouds are dispersed, the foes are crushed and are buried as Pharaoh and his host were buried in the depths of the sea. There are three points of contrast between Divine forgiveness and human.
1. In human governments forgiveness is exercised with most cautious limitations. Human Sovereigns, however generous their natures, can only bestow pardon on a few out of numerous criminals. Were forgiveness to become general, the power of the government to maintain order would be weakened. There is no such limitation to the exercise of this prerogative in God. He offers pardon to all.
2. In human forelimbs there is no guarantee against future criminality. The prisoner pardoned by a human Sovereign may be inspired by gratitude and prompted perhaps to resolve upon a life of future obedience, and yet his heart remain unchanged. The principles that led to his crime may still be in him, and, being there, they may break forth again. But in Divine forgiveness it is not so. The pardoned man is a changed man: he has a new heart put within him—a heart inspired with such love to the Sovereign as will secure a joyous and constant obedience.
3. Human forgiveness can never put the criminal in such a good position as he had before his transgression. He has his freedom as before, but he has not his self-respect, he has not the same standing in society; his contemporaries will never look upon him in the same light again. Some will shun him, others will suspect him, and few will venture to give him their confidence and their love. But in Divine forgiveness the criminal is raised to a higher status even than that of innocence. I know not whether the angels would have been his servants had he never fallen; but after his forgiveness they become so. They rejoice with him on his conversion, they cheer him on his pilgrimage, they bear him on their pinions to their heavenly scenes. He is brought into an "innumerable company of angels." We see partially from his state in Eden what relations man would have entered into with his Maker had he never sinned; but I believe that he never would have had what the pardoned sinner has - the honour of seeing his Maker, in the Person of Jesus, on the throne of the universe, gazed on by every eye and worshipped by every eye and worshipped by every heart.—D.T.